Friday, February 27, 2009

Can Sprint's Palm Prē really do multitasking?

A very interesting article entitled 'Apple iPhone vs. Palm Pre' is very well written by Joseph Hanlon from C|Net Australia, and has been posted by Sammy (thanks to Mark Hatton for the heads up).

The article discusses about the advantages and disadvantages of both the iPhone and the Prē™, there's even a very easy to read comparison chart between the smartphones. It's a must see for you who's still doubtful whether to get the Prē™ over the iPhone or not. ;-p

In the article, Joseph is reminding us all of the Prē's™ main trait against iPhone: the ability to do multitasking. He says:

"Palm's Card system is the exact antithesis of this (the iPhone not being capable of multitasking), not only running several applications in the background, but showing them in an active state on the deck-of-cards style home screen. This way you can have messages sent from IM services or social networking sites sent to your phone while you type emails, surf the web or take a phone call."

This multitasking ability in the Prē™ has also been (re-)confirmed by Palm Prē™ software product manager Sachin Kasal, during an interview with Ben Smith from Mobile Industry Review (via PreCentral) Sachin said there are about three high level items which will redefine the user experience:

Synergy

Ability to handle multiple simultaneous applications (Card View)

The way Palm handles interruptions and notifications on the Pre

But then I remember another interesting fact about the Prē™ coming from PC Mag article by Sascha Segan; where he managed to get a confirmation from Palm vice president of software product management Pam Deziel himself during MWC '09 that Sprint's Palm Prē™ can't surf the web over wireless data connection while making a phone call at the same time. Sascha then explains the simple reason why:

"The difference between the European and Sprint Pre's is common to all EVDO and UMTS phones. EVDO networks like those from Sprint and Verizon Wireless can't run voice and data streams at the same time, so EVDO phones have to pause Internet connections temporarily while they make phone calls. UMTS phones can run voice and data at the same time. The Sprint Pre will be able to make phone calls while surfing the Web using Wi-Fi, just not with 3G."

So with all of these hypes and buzz around Palm Prē™ and its "iPhone-killer" feature: multitasking, I just want to remind all of you who're gonna buy the Prē™ as soon as it comes out, that you should remember this EVDO limitation before you rush in the long line.

But hey, who I'm foolin' right? I guess you'll get the Palm Prē™ anyway even though you've read this, I know I will. ~LOL~

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